


Hear You Me

by semperama



Series: Tumblr Ficlets - Pinto [22]
Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Coming Out, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-12-04 03:18:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11546397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semperama/pseuds/semperama
Summary: Chris comes out to the execs at Paramount, and Zach shows up to comfort him in the aftermath.





	Hear You Me

The first thing Zach notices when Chris opens the door is the red around his eyes. The second is the way he carries his shoulders high and tense, like he’s expecting to have to defend himself from a physical blow. Like he expected Zach to be an attacker, not a friend. It takes a few seconds before he seems to register that it’s Zach who’s standing there and relaxes a fraction. “I told you that you didn’t have to come.”

_Shut up_ , is what Zach would normally say. _Don’t be ridiculous_. But he chokes down the words, wondering if they always taste so bitter and how he didn’t notice that before. Instead, he steps across the threshold and, when Chris starts to back up, Zach grabs him and pulls him close, puts a hand between his shoulder blades and holds him until he goes all the way limp, until his face is pressed into the curve of Zach’s shoulder.

“You thought I’d let you deal with this alone?” Zach says.

“I have other friends.” Chris curls his fingers into Zach’s shirt, his fingernails raking Zach’s skin through the fabric. “I have my family. You don’t need to disrupt your life for me.”

“Shh,” Zach says. He hardly recognizes himself, how tender he sounds. It feels right and good to cup his hand around the back of Chris’s neck and hold him close while he shuffles them away from the door and kicks it shut behind him. He doesn’t want to dislodge Chris just yet. “Don’t worry about me. Do…you want to tell me how it went?”

A few minutes later they’re sitting on the couch with beer bottles sweating in their hands. The sunlight streaming in the window behind Chris only highlights the dark circles under his eyes and the hollows in his cheeks. Whether from anxiety or some other reason, he hasn’t been sleeping, Zach can tell. Maybe not eating much either.

“They aren’t going to fire me, so that’s the good news,” Chris says, looking down at his lap and gripping his beer with both hands. “But I guess I wasn’t expecting the kind of lecture I got. They asked if I’d considered what this would do to them, and to me. They said I should have told them sooner.”

“Did you tell them you didn’t know sooner?”

“I tried to, but I don’t think they bought it, for some reason.”

Zach scoffs, sparks of anger flaring up into his chest. “Most people don’t realize how much living in a heteronormative society can affect you. They don’t understand it makes it hard to figure out who you are when you’re told at every turn it’s not normal.”

“Yeah,” Chris sighs, his shoulders slumping with weariness. “I know. I didn’t have time to lecture them in return though.”

Zach gentles immediately, the irritation flowing out of him again. Now is not the time. “Of course not. It’s not your responsibility anyway.”

“Clearly it needs to be someone’s responsibility.” Chris’s eyes fall shut for a moment. His thumbnail scratches at the label on his bottle. “They asked me…they asked me if you and I were sleeping together.”

“And what did you say?” Zach asks, unsurprised. Of course those assholes would assume two queer men in close proximity must be fucking.

Chris shrugs but doesn’t look up at Zach. “I told them the truth. That we have in the past but it isn’t serious.”

Every nerve is Zach’s body lights up with the wrongness of it—not only the falseness of the words, but the way Chris looks as he says them, the defeat in the roundness of his shoulders and the sadness in the down-turned corners of his mouth. Zach has to take some blame for this, he supposes. For making the choices he’s made. For making Chris feel like he couldn’t turn to him at a time like this, because of the distance or their circumstances or maybe something else entirely. Obviously now would be a good time to remind Chris of how things really are, how they’ve always been.

He leans forward and gently extricates the bottle from Chris’s grasp, then sets both of them down on the table. He takes Chris’s hands in his and lifts Chris’s fingers to his lips, kissing them until Chris draws in a great, shuddering breath and looks up at him.

“There you are,” Zach says, and lets himself smile. “Do I have your attention?”

Chris nods, wide-eyed.

“I love you, you know that?”

Chris nods again, his tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip.

“Good. I’m glad,” Zach says. “But what you clearly don’t know is that I wouldn’t say that to you if this wasn’t serious to me.” He kisses Chris’s knuckles again, then lowers their combined hands to his lap and holds on tight. “You’re so brave, admitting who you are to those Paramount ghouls and doing it alone, but you didn’t have to do it alone. I would have been there. I am here.”

“I know, but—”

Zach shakes his head. “No, no ‘but’. That’s the whole truth: I am always going to be here for you. It wouldn’t have mattered if you came out to our execs or not. It doesn’t matter if you come out to the public, or if you never move to New York, or even if you…if you decide you don’t want what we have together anymore. You’re…” Zach swallows hard and has to force himself not to look away. “You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me, Chris. I think I could live ten lifetimes, and you’d still be the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

It creeps back into Chris’s face slowly, that light that always shines out of him but has been so dim since Zach walked into this house. Now, it warms his gaze and makes smile lines bloom at the corners of his eyes. It curls his mouth into a shy grin and makes him squeeze Zach’s hands until Zach has to lean in and kiss him, there’s nothing else for it. As always, that smile tastes as good as it looks.

“You’re such a fucking sap,” Chris says when they break apart, a laugh lurking around the edges of the words. But his eyes say, _I love you_. They say, _What would I do without you?_ And Zach gets the message loud and clear.


End file.
